November 4, 2022

The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day

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Hello and welcome to The Node. This is Daniel Kuhn and Xinyi Luo, here to take you through the latest in crypto news and why it matters. In today’s newsletter:

In this newsletter: Landmark European crypto law MiCA was delayed, Circle transfers reserves into a BlackRock fund and Elon Musk halts work on Twitter’s wallet.
The Takeaway: David Z. Morris writes about why tech layoffs seem to keep happening amid the U.S. labor force’s seeming rebound.

– D.K.

Today’s must-reads

Top Shelf

EU Delays Vote on MiCA Crypto Legislation Until 2023: European Union lawmakers won’t vote on the Markets in Crypto Assets regulation (MiCA) until February, citing the length and complexity of the text. The landmark law requires crypto companies (like wallet providers and exchanges) to seek authorization from national regulators, overhauls stablecoin guidance and will impact crypto taxation across the 27 countries in the European Union.

“There's a reasonable expectation that MiCA will influence rulemaking across the world…bring[ing] efficiencies to a lot of global companies like ours,” Binance’s Director of EU Affairs Hugo Coelho said at a recent conference.

Circle Taps BlackRock for USDC Collateral: Circle, the maker of the second-largest stablecoin by market cap, has begun moving the reserves backing USDC into a dedicated fund set up by BlackRock and registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Circle Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Fox-Geen called this a “temporary measure.”

The ultimate goal is for Circle’s cash funds to be held at the Federal Reserve, through a reverse-repo program initiated by BlackRock.

Twitter Reportedly Halts Work on Crypto Wallet: Dogecoin, the meme coin favored by Elon Musk, fell 10% after news broke that Twitter would cease crypto wallet development. The move, part of ongoing changes led by its new owner, signals that hoped-for Web3 integrations at Twitter may be more bark than bite.

Musk had floated the idea of DOGE payments, contributing to a recent run-up in the token’s price.

Gala Games Hit With Potential $1B Hack? Blockchain gaming company Gala Games appears to have suffered rug pull or hack causing its native GALA token to fall 20% after someone minted $1 billion worth of GALA token out of thin air. The company has since implied the drain on its liquidity pool was a preventative measure.

"All GALA tokens on Ethereum as well as the underlying bridge collateral are SAFE," related entity pNetwork tweeted, adding there was a "misconfiguration of the p.Network bridge."

– Xinyi Luo

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Putting the news into perspective

The Takeaway

(Zoran Milch/Getty Images)

Don’t Mistake Tech Layoffs for a Recession

We saw two seemingly contradictory news stories today – Elon Musk fire up to 50% of Twitters's staff while October's job report dramatically outperformed Wall Street projections with 261,000 new hirings. The stories are a reminder of the deep disconnect between the tech sector and the rest of the economy, David Z. Morris writes. Read the full story here.

Overheard on CoinDesk TV...

Sound Bites

"It depends where we shake out on CBDCs [central bank digital currencies]."

– Needham & Co. Vice President John Todaro, on USDC becoming a de facto CBDC, on CoinDesk TV's "First Mover"

The news in a sentence

Headlines

Aptos CEO Defends 'Fair' Tokenomics That Prompted Community Backlash | Terra's Do Kwon May Be in Europe | Singapore Approves In-Principle License for Crypto Fund Manager Hashkey | Canada Announces Crypto, Stablecoin Consultation in New Budget Statement | Santander UK Puts Limits on Payments to Crypto Exchanges | Japan Digital Ministry to Create DAO for Web3 Exploration | Monkey Drainer Scammer Strikes Again, Steals $800K of NFTs |

What others are writing

Off-Chain Signals

Crypto exchange Binance helped Iranian firms trade $8 billion despite sanctions (Reuters)
Crypto Accounting Plan Faces Decision on How to Record Swings (Bloomberg)
Your Diploma is an NFT — Mongolian Students to Receive Honors on a Polygon Chain (The Defiant)
Project Cedar: NY Fed Launches Effort to Design Wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (Blockworks)

The Chaser...